Kojima Hideo san also did Snacher and Policenauts which are Adventure Games that are Cutscene Heavy but Policenauts did not make it out of Japan, also he did Zone of the Enders and Zone of The Enders 2.

and By The Way MGS4 Sold better then MGS3 which had the lowest sales for the series.

any way Back on topic yes JRPG a niche genre and when I say JRPG I mean every RPG from Japan not just Turn Based RPGs. but you have to remember that most JRPGs get little to no Marketing exposure in Europe which doesn't help maters regarding there niche status.

also see my other post for more.  

Ninty consoles havent been getting that much RPGs since the SNES era, it got much worst when Square left that entire camp and went to PS1, i could count on two hands how much JRPGs  N64 got. PS1 got like 40???? thats just the US. I think it will be along time till we see an RPG library like SNES, we might never see it again on a Ninty console

Generally RPGs have more text so I think its harder for them to be localised in Europe because of all the languages.

Agree with much of this.

The thread titles doesn't specifiy JRPG yet nearly everyone in this thread is going on about them with barely a mention of traditional WRPGs which have always been successful in Europe as a relatively niche but popular genre. 

Games like the Ultima series, Betrayal at Krondor, the Might & Magic series, Fallout series, Elder Scrolls series, Baldurs Gate and Quest for Glory, Neverwinter Nights etc. have all done fairly well.

Europeans like RPGs, but they have traditionally liked a different type of RPG to JRPGs. I think the issue for JRPGs is that they have difficulty marketing when their are so many different cultural tastes. Europe's a mix of cultures and unless you have the might and experience of Square-Enix (or SCEE in the case of FFVII), it's very difficult to market them appropriately to every country in the EU.

But that's the issue. Why do we think this way? What have JRPG's done to cause this stigma to be attached to them, in the area where WoW is the most played?

@Tomatito- so true. But we need to receive them in the first place. Nintendo, are you listening!

why arent any wrpgs listed???

booooooo!!

japanese games have a tendency not to come to the west thats it, it doesnt have anything to do with rpgs.

Most "good" JRPGs are either in small shipments so the price is insanely knocked up, see example;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tales-of-Vesperia-Xbox-360/dp/B0021AERUQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296812001&sr=8-1

Or they just plainly suck and there is not a big market for them. No offence but I find most of the JRPGs more of the same, the story is worse than in FPS in some cases, due to cheesy music, lame emo-like characters and constant whinging on the part. I liked Lost Odyssey, but that was an exception for some weird reason. There is only so much the western market can take of half naked chics with insanely large breasts running around and fighting a giant godzilla type of robot to save the universe. JRPGs are just too niche for the western market.

Yeah my point was those games arnt successful in Europe, or even in Japan for that matter.

i was also reffering to the sales of MGS3 subsistance as well, but vgchartz dosent have tracking for that title in Europe. but the sales have regressed since the 2nd game, its a well know series, i expect the same fans are buying it. that was my point - its not necessarily bringing more people, its built on the name.

yeah i remember you mentioned this before about marketing. i remember Star Ocean 4 got a pretty good marketing campagain here in Europe thanks to being a Mircosoft exclusive. its not just necessarily marketing. people know what JRPGs are they just dont enough about to be interested. a lot of SE RPGs were 360 exclusives as well - that type of exposure didnt help them much it seems.

so JRPGs have been getting a high priority this gen, Microsoft's 360 has helped a lot, but still there no mass market appeal in Europe. but WRPGs are doing things a little better, and i think its because those games are more accessible. but their not breakout successes either.

Quite obviously there must be at least some truth behind those claims. I don't mind playing JRPGs even though I'm not a huge fan of them, but in my eyes, most of them are pretty similar so once you've played one, the next one won't be that different. Then there's cases like Final Fantasy that try to change things but go more or less wrong, and even if the changes are successful, the game is most likely more 'odd' than traditional JRPGs and thus easily becomes niche.

As for WoW, MMOs are addictive and WoW is supposedly one of the best MMOs, like it or not. Besides, there's a huge social aspect there which is almost completely absent in JRPGs. Also, WoW is almost mainstream, a bit like CoD.

Microsoft was basically trying to be the PS2 of this Gen so they got SO4 and TOV, ES  and other JRPGs Exclusive on the XBOX 360 worldwide but because of there continued lack of ability to make inroads in Japan and a general lack of sales of JRPGs worldwide on the XBOX 360 most of the JRPGs got ported to the PS3 in most cases in effect in Director's Cut Forms but because of 6 mouths to 1 year delay didn't get the sales if they had been PS3 Exclusive of Mutiplatform from day 1. 

TOV for PS3 is one of few exceptions were the PS3 release did better then the XBOX 360 release because the Japanese sales numbers for TOV PS3 are almost the same as the XBOX 360 Version Worldwide.